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LD: When Ernest came back from, end of the war, why don't you start... tell us again minus what your brother who your brother Ernest was, how old he was, how old you were at the time. It was the end of the war now, what has he been doing? He was in I Company, he was in the 442nd, right? So tell us that. He's your oldest brother?

KK: No.

LD: No, but he's older than you by how many years?

KK: Seven. Ernie is seven years older than me.

LD: You were about eleven or twelve when he came back?

KK: And so I was about eleven.

LD: You were about eleven.

KK: Eleven or twelve.

LD: So, "I remember..." tell us what you remember about that? What do you remember about his coming back?

KK: What I remember about my brothers visiting in their uniforms, visiting us in the internal security camp called Crystal City in Texas, we were in this camp, which was a holding camp for those who were to be deported. It was a family camp, so my brother Edison, my brother Bob, myself, and my mother were moved from Amache, Colorado, to this camp in Crystal City, Texas. And because it was not a WRA, not a War Relocation Authority camp, but an internal security camp, it was more secure. It was a family camp, so the families cooked and lived in family units, in barracks, but they were cut up into units and so we could cook and live as a family. Half the camp was for Germans and Italians, and half was for Japanese. And besides... well, most of the Germans we found were from South America, and then most of the Japanese were from continental U.S. But there was a group that was brought from Peru. There were Japanese incarcerated in Peru and shipped over here to the U.S. to be incarcerated in Crystal City camp. That's another whole story, somebody will have to tell that one of these days. But when my brothers came to this camp to visit, it wasn't like in the WRA camps where they could go in and stay with the families. We had a visiting room, and it was just like in any prison, in which they were on one side of a table and you were on the other side. So when my brother came, the first time he came, I wasn't there because I didn't know that he had come. But in later years he said he came to visit the camp and it was after visiting ours, that he just stood at the fence and they said he couldn't come, he'd have to come back. And so he went to the little town of Crystal City outside, and he said he was so tired and he was so lonely and he said he just lay fully clothed on the bed and just cried himself to sleep that night. And ironic because here he was from the 442, coming back, and the other fellows were going home, some of them were going home, but they were going home to camps where they could be with the family. And a lot of the Hawaii boys were going home to Hawaii and would be greeted with leis and warmly greeted. And he said he didn't know where to go so he came to Crystal City because that's where Mom and Dad were. When he got there, all he met was a fence. So that was a very sad night for him, and then the next day he came, and we couldn't really have him in our home, we couldn't cook for him, we couldn't do any of those things you want to do for a returning loved one, but be there and see him and talk to him. So I was very strained and very tearful situation, very hard. And then it was very... I forgot how much time they gave us, but it was like any prison, the time is limited, and then the guard tells you you have to go. So it was not, it was not an easy homecoming for him or for us.

LD: He was in I Company?

KK: He was in I Company. Later on he came to Hawaii working for the YMCA. And in the '50s he came once as a Y secretary and worked... I mean, not as a secretary, but as a Y worker, club organizer, and he worked the west Oahu area. And my husband's cousins lived in that area and they got to know him, out in Ewa Beach. Then he went back and he worked for the Y in Tacoma, Washington, Ventura, California, San Diego, California. And then in 1960s, I had moved back, I had moved here the first time that I'd ever come to Hawaii was in 1960 when my husband had graduated from Michigan State and we came back to live in Hawaii. And about a year after I came back, 1961, I think it was, Ernie came back to Hawaii and worked for the YMCA here, and he's been here ever since. During the '60s, I had two girls here in Hawaii, I had a son in Michigan before I came. And then my husband worked for the Federal Aviation Administration, and in 1967 got a scholarship to go the University of California, and that was like going home for me because I attended the University of California at Berkeley, and then graduated from the school of nursing in San Francisco. So we decided we would accompany him for his year of schooling, and I took the children and we went up there. And then from there we came back to Hawaii, but we only stayed a few months and then went to Washington, D.C., and we were there until 1972. All that time Ernie was here working for the YMCA, and he went full circle, from being, starting out from West Oahu as a club organizer, he retired as the secretary for West Oahu, the YMCA. And he retired, I forgot what year it was now.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 1985 The Center for Educational Telecommunications and Densho. All Rights Reserved.